USA > New York > Dutchess County > Dutchess county > Part 8
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CUSHING HOUSE (14), designed by Allen & Collens, is the newest dormitory. The exterior, constructed of red brick and half timber, is of Tudor design. The rooms, almost all single, accommodate 125 students.
HELEN KENYON HALL OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION (15), named for a member of the class of 1905, is of red brick and built on the unit plan. One of the four great wings built around the central dressing rooms is used for individual exercise and rhythmic work. In the other wings are basketball, tennis, handball, and squash courts and a large swimming pool. Under these courts run bowling alleys and an archery range.
The MILDRED ROSALIE WIMPFHEIMER NURSERY SCHOOL (16), a small gray stone building, provides classrooms and play equipment for about 30 children from the ages of two to five, who come from the families of the faculty and of residents of Poughkeepsie. The Nursery School serves as a laboratory for students taking courses in child study. In this school Vassar has made a very successful experiment in co-education.
The MINNIE CUMNOCK BLODGETT HALL OF EUTHENICS (17) furnishes facilities for education and research in the field of euthenics, a word which has been defined as "the application of knowledge to the better- ment of human living." Blodgett Hall contains a demonstration theater, a large lecture hall, classrooms, laboratories for research, and studios for de- sign and interior decoration. The north wing houses the physiology depart- ment with classrooms and a well-equipped laboratory. In this building a group of about 30 students live under a cooperative system. Under the super- vision of the director of euthenics they order the food, which they cook and serve, plan the menus, and control entirely the expenditure for food.
The WARDEN'S HOUSE (18), with its cedar-hedged garden, is the private residence of the college warden.
The OBSERVATORY (19) is the only academic building beside Main finished before the opening of the college. First professor of astronomy was Maria Mitchell, distinguished, not only as a scientist, but also as an ardent advocate of woman suffrage. She was the first woman whose bust was placed in the Hall of Fame in New York. The first years of her life were spent on her native island, Nantucket, where she got her early training in the observatory of her father, William Mitchell. At the age of 10 she was both teacher and pupil in his school, and in her thirteenth year she was keeping records of his observations. Before she was 30, international fame came to her through discovery of a comet for which she received a gold medal from the King of Denmark. The degree of LL.D., conferred upon her by Hanover College, was probably the first degree of its kind ever
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conferred upon a woman by an American college. Professor Mitchell with- drew from active duties at the age of 70, less than two years before her death. A bust of her, the work of Emma Brigham, a former student, stands in a niche in front of the Observatory.
METCALF HOUSE (20) was given to Vassar in 1916 by former United States Senator and Mrs. Jesse Metcalf, of Providence, R. I., as an expression of gratitude to the medical department for the care given their daughter Cor- nelia during a serious illness. Miss Metcalf became the wife of New York State Senator Frederic H. Bontecou, of Millbrook. The building contains a pathological laboratory, an apartment for the resident physician, and rooms for convalescents and rest cases.
The SWIFT MEMORIAL INFIRMARY (21) is the hospital for members of the college family.
ELY HALL (22) is now the health center, with offices for the medical staff and the nurses' suite. It houses also three art studios and class rooms, offices, and a laboratory for the geology department. Its name recalls to those who knew her, one of Vassar's distinguished graduates, Achsah M. Ely, professor of mathematics, 1887-1904.
Back of Main are the buildings classed as the business group, including the laundry, the service building, and the heating plant. This last was the first central heating plant constructed in America. Nearby is the little ELEANOR CONSERVATORY (23) and the GOODFELLOWSHIP CLUB HOUSE (24), built by the Students' Association in 1902 as a club house for the employees of the college, both men and women. Here a trained supervisor lives, creating a home atmosphere for the members. She is as- sisted by students, who conduct classes, direct the annual Goodfellowship Club play, and often share in the social life of the house.
The Lombard Romanesque ALIDA C. AVERY HALL (25) is one of the three oldest buildings on the campus. Although it has borne several names and has been used in many different ways, its exterior is scarcely changed since the time it was built during the first year of the college. It was then called Riding School and Gymnasium, but contained also a bowling alley, rooms for the department of music, and rooms for the families of em- ployees. The New York Times reported the Riding School as "the most beau- tiful in this country, second in size only to that of West Point." But in 7 years it proved a financial failure; and the student paper of January 1873, contains the following mournful item : "The glory of Vassar has departed. Its Riding School is no more. False economy. Would the Art Gallery be abolished if it did not pay?" Today the building contains the Experimental Theatre; its director, Hallie Flanagan, has been granted an extended leave of absence to carry on her work as National Director of the Federal Theatre Project under the Works Progress Administration. The building houses also the classrooms and offices of the Greek and Latin departments with their fine collection of ancient vases, glass, coins, armor, and household utensils ;
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the offices of the English department, and the classrooms, offices, and work- shop of the classes in Dramatic Production.
South of Main stands the science quadrangle, the ground sloping away behind it to the Outdoor Theatre and the Shakespeare Garden. The earliest of these buildings is VASSAR BROTHERS LABORATORY (26), given for the use of the departments of chemistry and physics by the two nephews of Mr. Vassar, Matthew Vassar, Jr., and John Guy Vassar, both charter trustees of the college until their deaths.
The SANDERS LABORATORY OF CHEMISTRY (27) contains laboratories and lecture rooms and has special laboratories for water analysis, study of foods, electrolysis, and physical chemistry.
The HENRY M. SANDERS LABORATORY OF PHYSICS (28) contains laboratories and lecture rooms.
Directly west of Vassar Brothers Laboratory is the NEW ENGLAND BUILDING (29), the gift of the New England alumnae. Over the door is set a piece of Plymouth Rock broken off prior to 1859, when the canopy was erected over it. The name of the vandal who procured this relic is not known. The building houses the departments of botany and zoology as well as the museum of natural history.
The PRESIDENT'S HOUSE (30) stands near the southwest corner of Main Building.
The CHAPEL (31) was dedicated in the fall of 1904. It is constructed of yellow Weymouth granite trimmed with limestone. The exterior is de- signed like an English parish church in the Norman style. The interior is Gothic with hammer-beam· trusses copied from Westminster Hall, London. The stained glass windows are from the Tiffany studios, three of them de- signed by LaFarge. The organ of 4,538 pipes has been rebuilt as a gift from the donors of the chapel. A rose window on the west was given by the trus- tees to commemorate the twentieth year of the administration of President Taylor. The facade of the chapel faces north, with a square three-story bell tower on the western side. The tower contains a memorial room with tablets commemorating members of the college who have rendered conspicuous service to the college or to the outer world. In the upper part of the tower is a room used for religious services by the students. Here visiting preachers hold weekly conferences on Sunday evenings.
The BELLE SKINNER HALL OF MUSIC (32) is designed in modi- fied French Gothic after Mont St. Michel in France. It contains a large recital hall, classrooms, offices, rooms for instruction and practice, and a collection of old musical instruments. A library of books and music includes the Chittenden Pianoforte Library and the Dannreuther Collection of Chamber Music. The building is equipped with an auditorium and a sound- reproducing system, a four-manual concert organ with self-playing attach- ment, phonographs, player pianos, and a stereopticon.
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South of Skinner Hall are the COLLEGE GREENHOUSES (33), and across the street is a FARM (34) stretching over more than 900 acres, which supplies the college with many of its vegetables, poultry, and dairy products.
To the north along Raymond Avenue and extending up College Avenue are KENDRICK HOUSE (35) and WILLIAMS HOUSE (36), faculty residences, and the DEAN'S HOUSE (37).
ALUMNAE HOUSE (38) is on the Rock Lot between Raymond and College View Avenues, overlooking the campus. Both this house and Wil- liams are in early half-timbered style. Alumnae House was given by two sisters, Mrs. Blanche Ferry Hooker, '94, and Mrs. Queene Ferry Coonley, '98. Many of the rooms have been furnished in memory of classmates and friends. A Japanese room was given in memory of the Princess Oyama, for- merly Stematz Yamakawa of the class of 1882. The living room is a copy of a room in the Davanzatti Palace in Florence, and is furnished with antiques, reproductions of Spanish furniture, and a cryptic painting by Violet Oakley. The house is under the management of the Alumnae Association and is the home of its executive secretary.
The OUTDOOR THEATRE (39) takes advantage of the hillside to form an amphitheatre and makes use of the pine trees and Sunset Lake as a backdrop for its stage. It was first used in 1915 to present a pageant during the fiftieth anniversary, which was celebrated that year. .
West of the theatre and enclosed by tall hedges is the terraced SHAKES- PEARE GARDEN (40), begun in 1916, the year of the Shakespeare Tercentenary, by Shakespeare classes and classes in botany. At the foot of the hill is a tree said to be grown from a slip of the willow over Napoleon's tomb on St. Helena. Along this brook are cultivated, for experimental pur- poses, most of the plants native to the county. The strip is known as the DUTCHESS COUNTY OUTDOOR ECOLOGICAL LABORA- TORY (41).
On the hillside south from the Shakespeare Garden and sloping down to Sunset Lake are the azaleas and rhododendrons planted for the class of 1875 ARBORETUM (42).
Most of the college buildings have been gifts from alumnae, trustees, and other friends of the college, who have not only contributed in this substan- tial way, but have identified themselves with the activities and progress of the institution.
The following paragraph, in the formal language of the day, appeared in a student magazine issued in 1873: "The artist who sketched the picture of our college as shown in the first page of the catalogue must have looked with the eye of faith to see waving elms and flourishing maples. The eye of flesh sees only here and there amidst the growing corn and trailing pumpkin
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vines a few slender twigs. We can never picture our great great grand- children wandering under spreading boughs." So spoke a pessimist, little realizing that not only her grandchildren but she herself might now walk for hours over the well-kept lawns and under the beautiful trees of the Vassar campus.
BEACON
Railroad Stations: New York Central, Ferry Plaza, foot of Beekman St .; New York, New Haven & Hartford, (freight only), 501 Main St .; connections with West Shore (N. Y. Central) and Erie at Newburgh via ferry.
Bus Stations: Pizzuto Bus Lines, Bank Square, to Wappingers Falls and Poughkeepsie. City Busses: Ferry Plaza, to Glenham and Fishkill. Special bus service to U. S. Veterans' Hospital and Camp Nitgedaiget.
Taxis: Ferry Plaza; independent lines, three zones, 25℃, 40c, 50C.
Steamboat Docks: Newburgh Ferry, foot of Beekman St., 6 a. m. to 1:45 a. m. Hudson River Dayline, via ferry to Newburgh, during summer after May I.
Accommodations: Hotel Holland (E), 217 Main St., at South Elm St .; Dillon House (E), opposite new postoffice; Beacon View Hotel (E), 426 Main St .; Bennett Hotel (A & E), 248 Main St., at Walnut St .; Mount Beacon Cottages (E) ,on west spur of Mount Beacon, reached by incline railway.
Motion Picture Houses: Two.
Recreation: Mount Beacon, via incline railway. (See Point of Interest No. 32.)
Playground: Hammond Memorial Field, Verplanck Ave., N. side.
Skiing: Junior ski course, along mountside, NE. Beacon. Ski-run, Mount Lane- Howland Ave. triangle, E. Beacon.
Golf: Southern Dutchess County Club, North Ave., nine-hole. Greens fees $1.50; Sat., Sun., holidays $2.
Tennis: Southern Dutchess Country Club; Hammond Memorial Field.
Baseball: Wilke St. (Tompkins) Field, off Fishkill Ave. (State 52).
Trap-Shooting: Southern Dutchess Sportsmen's Assn., oven-works range, Glenham (State 52).
BEACON (350 alt., 11,933 pop.), the county's second largest com- munity, marks the spot where Fishkill Creek flows into the Hudson. Mills and factories line the creek and river shores. The streets of frame cottages sheltered by elms and maples wind up and down and along the steep slopes of the two valleys. The better homes lie along the slope of the Hudson ; those of the middle class cover the slopes above the Fishkill; and the poorer homes alternate with the mills along the creek-edge or hug the terraces which rise to the rugged side of Mount Beacon on the south. The city line ex- tends far beyond the compact city streets, so that much of the corporate area is distinctly rural.
Beacon is essentially a manufacturing community ; bricks and hats are now, as they have been for generations, the principal products, though the list exceeds 50. The brick industry is concentrated in one large plant at Denning
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Point on the Hudson. (See Points of Interest.) Of the few remaining hat factories, one occupies the site of Madam Brett's gristmill (See Point of In- terest No. 12), and another a building in which handcut files were first manufactured in the United States. (See p. 66.)
While almost every European nationality is represented, the Italians are by far the most conspicuous, comprising one-sixth of the population; and their activities are those of the city. Americanization has been so rapid that old world customs are but faintly traceable. The influence of the early Dutch, Huguenot, and English settlers has been lost, other than in surviving names and buildings. An exception are the "mountaineers," who live on the flanks of Mount Beacon and look down upon the valley dwellers as "water- rats." These descendants of early English residents of Fishkill Landing and Matteawan, the two villages which were welded together in 1913 to form Beacon, are largely odd-job and day laborers and small-scale truck farmers, though some of them work in the city factories.
Beacon has the distinction of being the first commission-governed city in New York State, as well as one of the first in the United States. The govern- ment is managed by a board of five commissioners, each of whom has charge of specific details. The city council controls all public affairs excepting the department of education, which is under the supervision of the school board appointed by the mayor. A municipality owned water supply of three reservoirs is maintained in the nearby mountains. The climate is tem- perate and the coolness of the mountains makes a summer resort of the city and vicinity. Over 70 percent of the city's 2,400 houses are owned by the oc- cupants.
River, creek, and mountains made of the site of Beacon and the sur- rounding area a favorite resort of the Indians; and not far from the mouth of the creek was located the village of a sub-chief of the Wappinger In- dians. This good hunting, fishing, and trapping ground was called by the Indians Matteawan (Mat-te-a-wan), the name later applied to one of the white men's villages. The Highlands were known by the Waranoaks of this section as the Matteawan Mountains. The name has been interpreted as "the place of furs," referring to beaver, once plentiful along the creek. An- other claim is that it is derived from metai, a magician or medicine man, and wian, a skin, hence "a place of enchanted skins." It is said also to have been derived from the stream passing through this area, from the nearby moun- tains, and from the region itself. Interpretations are various: "river of shal- lows," "the large water in the valley," "a good beaver ground," "good furs," "country of good fur," and a term applied to a junction of a stream with another or with a lake.
The site of Beacon was included within the territory covered by the Rom- bout Patent ; the land was purchased from the Indians in 1683. (See p. 6.) It is said that in the bargaining the Indians agreed to transfer to Rombout all "the land that he could see," but did not specify that his view was to be confined to the valley where he stood. Rombout led them to the summit of
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South Beacon mountain, and extending his arm toward the northward and eastward, laid claim to the vast expanse of rolling hills and forests that lay beneath their gaze. The Indians had made their bargain and they held to it. The patent was based upon the wide boundaries of this purchase.
The earliest recorded mention of this locality by a European was that made by the mate of the Half Moon, which on the trip down the river was com- pelled by the whims of the weather to lie for a day in the vicinity of the present city of Beacon. (See p. 6.) The log of the voyage mentions the mountains and refers to the site of Beacon as an admirable townsite.
For nearly three-quarters of a century after the visit of the Half Moon there were no permanent white settlers in Dutchess County. The first was Nicholas Emigh, who settled at the mouth of Fishkill Creek, within the present city limits, in 1682. Emigh, a Hollander and a soldier under Prince Rupert in the warfare against Cromwell, came to America with Robert Livingston about 1672. He was married on shipboard, and, with his wife, settled in this nearly unbroken wilderness. Their daughter was the first white child born within the precincts of Dutchess County. The next per- manent settler was Peche Dewall, a squatter, who located at Fishkill Landing in the spring of 1688. His wife helped him to clear the forest and till his land. In the fall he had a tolerable crop; and in the winter he built a hand- sled and went to New York, bought a half-bushel of salt and a side of sole leather, and drew it home over a road then but an Indian trail.
Development was slow. More Dutch, a few Huguenots, and some English settlers joined the trailbreakers; but for many years Fishkill Landing played a mute role as the port of Fishkill Village, transporting flour and produce to New York and receiving foreign and manufactured goods.
Active in the stirring preliminaries to the Revolution was Nathaniel Sackett, described by tradition as a jack of many trades and man of mystery who did his work under cover. He lived up on Fishkill Creek, in what be- came Matteawan. He served as financial officer of the Committee of Con- spiracies, member of the Flax Committee and of the Provincial Congresses and Assembly. When the news came to the Provincial Congress in New York of the Battle of Lexington, Nathaniel Sackett hastened back to Fish- kill like another Paul Revere, to spread the general alarm and organize the Committee of Observation. At the first meeting of this committee a Spartan woman declared with patriotic zeal that if exigencies required it her own sex would take up arms.
In the summer of 1776 and on into 1777, the problem of the refugees and the poor from the city of New York was of considerable concern to the Colonials. A large number of these people were removed to Dutchess, and many were brought by water to Fishkill Landing.
The war came close to the locality when the British moved up the Hud- son in 1777. Almost all the men went to the defense of the Highland forts. When these fell and the British sailed up the river to burn Kingston, the people of the neighborhood hid their valuables in the woods. The approach
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of the fleet was made known by the kindling of signal fires on the mountain tops. The present city takes its name from the fiery beacons that blazed forth from time to time on the summits of Breakneck Ridge to warn the Revolu- tionary armies of the movements of the British.
At the end of the war, when the proclamation of the end of hostilities was received, the people obeyed Washington's order and held an appropriate celebration. At night beacon lights proclaimed the news to the surrounding country.
For nearly 30 years after the close of the Revolution the region continued its quiet rural life, the grist mills continued grinding their grain and the saw mills sawing their wood. The War of 1812 ushered in a new era. The Schenck mill on the creek at what later became Matteawan took on the added task of grinding grist for the fighting forces, and the flour industry hummed. But the influence of the war was much broader than that: it brought a con- sciousness of self-sufficiency and internal strength; forward-looking in- vestors and speculators began casting about them, seeking new resources and opportunities. And the war provided a field of activity by serving as an embargo against English textiles and giving domestic manufacturers a virtual monopoly of the home market for the time being. It was the beginning of the industrial age in America.
To the attention of a small group of men was presented the possibilities of developing the power of Fishkill Creek, which drops rapidly from Glen- ham to the Hudson, with a fall of 40 feet in a short section where Schenck's gristmill already stood. Flour was nearly forgotten in the rush to turn out textiles. The first big mill was built at Glenham in 1811. The Matteawan Company, organized in 1812 by Peter A. Schenck, Philip Hone, John Jacob Astor, and others, erected a cotton mill in 1814 on the creek directly above Schenck's gristmill. Shortly thereafter they built a foundry on the east side of the creek, devoted largely to the production of cotton machinery. With the spread of the cotton craze, their machinery was distributed far beyond the bounds of the United States.
Around the Matteawan factory grew Matteawan village, the name of which was originally restricted to the mills. The founders are reputed to have been Schenck and Leonard of the Matteawan Company. The Brett in- fluence was represented in this development of the new country, since Peter A. Schenck's wife, Margaret Brett, was a granddaughter of Madam Brett.
Fishkill, five miles back from the river, had long been the important vil- lage of southern Dutchess. The lower settlements near the river did not amount to much, except for Fishkill Landing, where the sloops docked with merchandise and passengers to be hurried inland by wagon and coach. The new cotton mills stimulated the growth of the river communities. Another fillip was given by the introduction of steam, as a result of which river traffic grew in volume and importance. The Bretts (See Teller House, p. 74) and their associates were quick to turn to the new mode; and the lower settle- ments began to outrun Fishkill.
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The power sites that were the chief stimulus to the development of Mat- teawan attracted other industries besides the textile mills. John Rothery, of Sheffield, England, built his file works in 1835 near the Matteawan factory. Various other industries located in the neighborhood: an oil mill, a clay mill, cooperages, tanneries, a leather belting manufactory, a shoe factory, soap and candle makers, and a brewery.
Quantities of clay and sand of good quality were at hand, and brickyards were established near the landings in the late 1830's. At Gowdy's yard, and its successor, the Lomas yard, the pace was set in brickmaking: here was first introduced the circular pit and wheel, with horses on a sweep, for mixing materials, and a hand-press for moulding the brick. Previously the clay and sand had been mixed by driving oxen through it and moulding it by hand, a slow and laborious process. The next stage in the development of the industry was the use of the Adams contrivance of circular pit and wheel, mixing and moulding in one operation; then the Chambers machine, mixing and die-cutting the brick in a continuous stream.
After the financial crisis of 1837 the forties ushered in a golden age. The cotton craze continued, and in '41 and '42 a dam and factory devoted to cotton spinning were erected at Wiccopee, below Matteawan, now included in Beacon. At Byrnesville, the southern section of the present Beacon, flour mills were dismantled and cotton machinery installed. Freighting at the landings was stimulated by this industrial boom. About 1844, Alfred Lomas, operating a pin factory near the "Five Corners" (Bank Square), invented a machine to turn out 150 pins a minute. At Wiccopee in 1851 was begun the manufacture of rubber goods. In 1853, at the Upper Landing, a foundry was started for the manufacture of stationary and marine engines. The famous Fishkill Corliss engines were made here. During the Civil War this foundry turned out ordnance: and from the landing nearby, the steamboat William Kent went into service carrying troops.
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